Book ‘em
Monday, June 13, 2005I’ve been tagged by Eva for this book meme (although, Eva’s been wrestling with semantics and technicalities ever since boning up on the history of the word itself, and hesitates to call it a meme). But anyway… on with the show.
Number of Books I Own
According to my delicious library, I have 475 books. But there are surely some I haven’t catalogued, and I can safely estimate a nice, round 500.
Last Book I Bought
Last weekend at the Beguiling I picked up these 3 beauties:
- Charles M. Schulz - The Complete Peanuts 1955-1956
- Tony Millionaire - Der Struwwelmaakies
- Top Shelf Editors - Top Shelf Asks the Big Questions
Last Book I Read
While in Arizona for the Reubens I read the appropriately-titled Men and Cartoons
Five Books That Mean a Lot to Me
- Dennis Lee - Alligator Pie
- Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Love in the Time of Cholera
- Jack Ziegler - Hamburger Madness
- Ogden Nash - Selected Poetry of Ogden Nash
- Roald Dahl - The Twits
Sure, the majority of those are somewhat silly choices—but for the most part, they’re books that, as a young robot, shaped my sense of humour, and cartooning, and my love for nonsense. I love “real” literature, too, of course—favourites include John Steinbeck, Kurt Vonnegut, Michael Chabon, Ian McEwan, and Robertson Davies. But in a fire I’d grab the Edward Lear, Groucho Marx, William Steig, and Dr. Seuss first.
Who’s Next?
I’m passing the torch to:
Eva says:
I love The Twits! Or anything Roald Dahl. Actually, I only like his children’s books: the adult books make me uncomfortable. One of the very first English book I read was Charlie and the Chocolate factory, so basically Mr Dahl taught me English.
David says:
Ah! The Twits. I loved that book as a little kid, but had almost forgotten it in my adult life. I didn’t realize it was Roald Dahl. Thanks for jogging my memory.
Monkeypup says:
My favorites of his were Henry Sugar (not a children’s book), The Fantastic Mr. Fox and Danny - Champion of the World. But they’re all good.
And Ogden Nash rocks.
The cow is of the bovine ilk;
One end is moo, the other, milk.
How could you not love the guy who wrote that??
Johnny says:
I love Dahl’s creepy non-children work as well (I hesistate to use the word ‘adult’, as it makes it sound like he wrote porn).
patricia says:
Johnny, what creepy non-fiction work are you refering to? I know about his creepy adult short stories (which I mention in my meme-answer to you). I also own and love ‘The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More’. Dahl was brilliant. Did you know that his grandaughter is not only a hot model, but also a published author herself?
Johnny says:
Patricia—read again. I said non-children.
patricia says:
Duh.
monkeypup says:
Well, Dahl did write a somewhat creepy non-fiction book about his time as a POW in the Cola Wars. Harrowing stuff. If not for the courage of Dahl and his plucky sidekick, Toothless Jim, he might never have escaped to share his talent with the world.
russo says:
Ogdan Nash is too clean. He reminds me of a times past that I never knew…
Oh, I long for the ‘good ol days,’ long before I existed.
Jason says:
I, too, love the Twits. My third grade teacher read it to us in class...along with George’s Marvelous Medicine. Maybe I lived a sheltered life, but I remember those books being so unusual at the time they were almost scandalous...completely unlike any of the more sanitized children’s books I was used to. Classic childhood!